Living in Russian Hill, San Francisco

Lombard Street's switchback block between Hyde and Leavenworth Streets draws a steady line of cars and tourists down its eight hairpin turns, planted with hydrangeas since the 1920s to slow drivers on a grade too steep to pave straight. The Powell-Hyde cable car climbs Hyde Street past the top of that same block, the closest thing Russian Hill has to rail transit; no BART or Muni Metro line runs through the neighborhood, leaving buses and the cable car as the way down to the flatter grid below. Ina Coolbrith Park and a scattering of hidden stairway streets, including the wooden steps of Macondray Lane, thread between the hill's prewar apartment buildings and townhouses, many holding sweeping views across the bay toward Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge. The neighborhood takes its name from a small pioneer-era cemetery once thought to hold Russian sailors, long since built over by the apartment blocks that cover the hill today.

The tourist traffic that Lombard Street draws can back up for blocks on weekend afternoons, and residents living near its curves plan their comings and goings around the crowds rather than through them.

Quiet, historic, and rated among the city's safest blocks, Russian Hill charges accordingly for the privilege — a rail-free walk down the hill traded for waking up to that bay view every morning.